从认知语境的建构分析《献给艾米丽的玫瑰》
关键词：认知语境；《献给艾米丽的玫瑰》；分析与解读
Abstract
A Rose for Emily is generally viewed as one of the most important American short stories in 20th century. Its author William Faulkner is regarded as the representative of the southern literature of the United States. However, researches into this novel mainly start from the prospective of literal criticism, ignoring analysis to linguistic form. Ever since the notion “context” comes into being, more and more linguists begin to research context from different aspects, but the application of the theories of context into the analysis of the literal work is not rare. The present paper, based on the theory of cognitive context, tries to infer the historical background of novel and analyze the two representative events of the novel: collecting taxes and Emily’s love. It shows that readers’ interpretation of the novel is a process of searching for various kinds of expectations and assumptions. And cognitive context provides a new way to interpret discourse, especially the literary text. The interpretation of the fate of Emily is indeed the construction of cognitive context.
Key words: Cognitive Context; A Rose for Emily; inference or analysis
Contents
摘 要 i
Abstract ii
Ⅰ. Introduction 1
Ⅱ. Cognitive Context 2
Ⅲ. Interpretation of A Rose for Emily by Cognitive Context 3
3.1 Inferences about the Novel’s Historical Background by Cognitive Context 4
3.2 Discourse Analysis by Cognitive Context 5
3.3 Character Analysis by Cognitive Context 7
3.4 Analysis of the Important Events by Cognitive Context 8
3.4.1 Event of Collecting Taxes 8
3.4.2 Event of Emily’s Love 10
Ⅳ. Conclusion 13
Bibliography 15
Acknowledgements 16
Analysis of A Rose for Emily from the Construction of Cognitive Context
Ⅰ. Introduction
One of the most frequently anthologized stories by Faulkner, A Rose for Emily is the remarkable story about Emily Grierson, an aging spinster in Jefferson whose death and funeral drew the attention of the entire town, “the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant― a combined gardener and cook― had seen in at least ten years.” The unnamed narrator, which some critics have identified as “the town” or at least a representative voice from it, in a seemingly haphazard manner relates key moments in Emily’s life, including the death of her father and a brief fling with a Yankee road paver, Homer Barron. Beyond the literal level of Emily’s narrative, the story is sometimes regarded as symbolic of the changes in the South during the representative period. As we have mentioned that the theme of William Faulkner’s short novels is the decay of the old South, and the emergence of ruthless and brash newcomers. The technique is the distortion of time through the use of the inner monologue. This short story A Rose for Emily can best represent these points. The fall of Miss Emily indicated the decay of the south, and the come of those Yankee road pavers, such as Homer Barron indicated the emergence of ruthless and brash newcomers. This short novel is one of the typical representative works of Faulkner and the author also used a lot of symbolism in this short novel. Only reading through the literal meaning cannot help us to fully understand the novel, so the contextual analysis of this short novel is necessary.
上一篇：论中学英语课堂活动设计
下一篇：中外教师课堂提问策略的对比研究